Origin

The character 尻 combines two components to represent the rear end of the body. The left part, 尸, originally depicted a human form or corpse in a horizontal position, establishing the "body" context. The right part, 九, which resembles a bent or curved shape, suggests the rounded, protruding form of the buttocks. Together, these elements create a picture of the body's rear portion, which is why the character came to mean buttocks or hips. This compound-ideographic approach—stacking a body reference with a shape indicator—makes intuitive visual sense for a body part.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).